The Giants attacked soon after dawn. They attacked on a fine
spring morning. They attacked with destructive and vicious swings of their
fire-sticks. They attacked and drove us from our home. They attacked and killed
hundreds. They attacked and slew indiscriminately our soldiers, our aged, our
young. They attacked and laid waste to our stores, our granaries, our city.
They attacked, and we could do nothing but watch as they plundered and pillaged
with abandon and avaricious glee.
The attack was not wholly unexpected. Our scouts had spied
the Giants amassing a few furlongs many hours earlier. Their large forms were
difficult to miss – their smallest member was taller than our largest by a few
hundred-fold. So yes, we had time to prepare. But we knew our airborne arsenal
would be of no use against them. This essentially meant we’d have to bodily
smash into them to cause even mild discomfort… and multiple hits would have to
be scored before any of them fell before us. Many of us would perish upon
impact. This we knew for certain. We had no other choice.
The city was buzzing with talk of the upcoming attack. Fear
showed in some eyes, anger in others, frustration and defiance made their
presence felt on many faces, and disheartened submission in a few shoulders.
This wasn't the first time the Giants had attacked. This would not be the last.
Our Queen decided to flee to safety with her trusted
bodyguards – the Mighty Hymenoptera, those swarthy warriors in their yellow and
black hauberks and long-bladed sabers that taper into a stiletto-like point. She
was vital to the establishment of a new colony and city should the worst happen
– her protection was of paramount importance. Squadron Lima would make up an additional escort.
Air Marshal Hibuzz was left in command of the defenses and
the counter-attack. We lived high up above the ground, and had no artillery or
naval fleet to command. We knew this. The Giants knew this. The Giants knew we
knew this. So that left the air, and we knew the Giants would be prepared for
any aerial stratagem we threw at them.
The Air Marshal wasted no time in sending scouting parties
for aerial sorties. Their mission: try to slow down the Giants’ initial
advance. Squadron Alpha, made up of veteran soldiers, and Squadron Omega, made
up of cadets fresh out of Flight
School
The Giants’ attack was accompanied by loud roars and the
stamping of feet. Their Fire-sticks burst into action, filling the air with heat
and smoke – smoke designed to suffocate and blind and disorient our troops. The
scouts who were busy running sorties against the advancing horde were, not
surprisingly, routed first. Many fell victim to the heat from the gigantic
Fire-sticks, shriveled up and fell to the ground twitching in agony. Scores of
them were trampled under the Giants’ feet. The others would never be the same
again, even if they survived. The surviving scouts broke off the attack and
fell back, but here too, not all succeeded. The blinding smoke camouflaged the
underlying fire, and most saw the flames approach through the fog too late to
execute evasive maneuvers. Some of them flew smack-dab into the flailing arms
of the Giants and were swatted aside.
We had no answer that would serve.
Those who did make it back regrouped warily, and as per
plan, joined ranks with Squadrons Romeo and Juliet. Air Marshal Hibuzz sounded
the charge, and the counter attack began in right earnest. Squadrons Alpha flew
in first, diving out of the sky and aiming for the heads and shoulders.
Squadron Omega flew in low, making a beeline for the waist. The idea was to
open the efforts with a two-pronged attack.
Both Squadrons crashed against the approaching Giants, and
fell before the smoke and heat. It was time to send in the reinforcements. Now
nature came to our rescue, and a strong gust of wind blew the smoke back
towards the Giants’ ranks, giving the second wave a small opening. Air Marshal
Hibuzz took off to lead the second wave himself and make the most of the
opportunity. At his signal, Squadron Sierra and Squadron Tango switched to
attack mode. But the wind was now blowing the smoke directly towards Squadron
Tango, and it was soon decimated, much as those who flew in before it. Squadron
Sierra fared a little better -- having the Sun behind them worked in their
favour, and they managed to close on the Giants – but they too eventually ran
up against the searing heat from the Fire-Sticks, and dwindles in numbers,
becoming little more than charred specks on the hard ground.
Those that got through came up against a new hurdle. The
Giants wore body-fitted armour crafted from closely latticed metal, and our
daggers, not much more than thorns from a Giant’s point of view, proved
ineffective. They broke off on the armour, and the onslaught turned into a
massacre -- a wasted sacrifice. The Air Marshal’s voiced roard into the radio
of every squadron, galvanizing the rest of us into action. “Attack At Will” he
shouted, and every one of us that was able to, responded with a fatalistic
finality.
By now, the wind had turned direction once again – nature
herself had given up on us. We shrugged it off. It was too late. We dove and
wove and spun and struck, trying to find a chink in their armour, trying to
swerve around the randomly waving fire-sticks, trying to dodge the fire itself,
trying to survive.
We were soon reduced to a few stragglers. The Air Marshal
was nowhere to be seen. We heard on the radio, reports of him going down
somewhere over the enemy’s western flank. His squadron-members said he was soon
indistinguishable from the ground, his broken body being trampled into it,
squashed and crushed to an unrecognizable pulp.
Ten thousand we were before the Giants attacked. Two hundred
beat a hasty retreat. Only one hundred made it to the grove where the Queen had
found sanctuary.
We staggered in, and turned to watch the Giants dance their
victory dance over the corpses of our valiant forces; jump and shout and thump
their brawny chests, and scramble over each other to get to our supplies. They
ripped into our granaries without a hint of contrition, or care, crushing homes
and offices and other myriad structures of our city in their ungodly haste.
They picked up our carefully-built-up stores in their grubby fists and squeezed
them into their wide-open mouths, swallowing months of back-breaking work in
seconds, letting bits of it dribble down the sides of their gaping maws,
licking remnants off their fingers and palms with long, thick tongues and
grunting loudly with perverse satisfaction.
All this we watched… and waited.
The Giants were soon sated. They extinguished their
Fire-Sticks in vats of water, took handfuls of our quaint city for souvenirs of
the day’s triumph, and moved off into the vast wilderness, no doubt in search
of more colonies to uproot. They took care to leave portions of our city
undamaged -- those portions we could rebuild upon. They knew we would. We knew
we would too. It’s far easier to rebuild that to start from scratch; plus, we
had lived there for generations. It was home.
The Queen and her entourage began to head back. We followed.
The rebuilding would start immediately. There was no time to waste. For the
most part, the Giants only attack once a year, and winter was still a way away
-- enough time to stock up before the chill sets in, the frost covers the
fields and deflowers our crop, and hunger threatens our lives.
